During the United States primaries, I had to consciously limit my fascination with US politics and remind myself that it was getting daily updates on the campaign trail shenanigans wasn’t much different to reading about foreign celebrities in gossip magazines. I had better things to do with my time and attention.

And then Trump got elected. Some people in New Zealand and elsewhere are frustrated that our news is full of US political events. Get on with your lives, people, they say. Focus on local issues, don’t be distracted, they say.

But when racism is made official, and selfishness becomes the guiding principle of a powerful nation, it’s no longer an ‘over there’ issue.

So here’s why I care about US politics and am taking current events very seriously.

1. It’s wrong, evil and affects millions of non-US citizens. Institutional hatred and xenophobia on this scale is everyone’s business.

2. Strangers in refugee camps are my neighbours, according to Jesus. I need to stand up for them if I can.

3. New Zealand is not exempt from the fascism and selfishness that is infecting the world in a new wave right now. Our closest neighbour, Australia, is engaged in torture of refugees, supported by both major political parties. The UK has voted to leave Europe and reduce immigration. We need to say loudly that this is not a path New Zealand is heading down, just as those Britons and Australians opposing their government’s actions are being called to speak up.

4. New Zealand is 96th in the world for taking in refugees. One of the richest and most spacious nations in the world has a shamefully low rate of welcoming the homeless. We need to keep telling our leaders to increase our own refugee quota.

5. The new US administration is attacking truth and science in ways that will affect us here. We need to be clear that facts matter, and our politicians can not succeed by following these bizarre new strategies that are working so well in the US.

6. I’ve read plenty of material about Nazi Germany, and like many people, I’m horrified at how familiar what’s going on in the US is. This is, in fact, how the Third Reich did things. Vilify people by racial and religious designations. Remove rights. Discard facts and replace them with propaganda. It took a whole world to defeat that regime. It will take a whole world now to resist the rise of fascism that the US administration is unleashing.

7. You’ll notice I am not referring to ‘Trump’ but to the ‘US administration’. I think it’s plausible that Donald Trump will not make it to the end of his term, but he is surrounded by powerful people who are not buffoons, but who are pursuing the same evil goals of exclusion and oppression. We need to stop talking about tiny hands and puffy hair and keep our focus on the systematic erosion of rights and compassion that the whole administration is engaged in.